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Officials of the Enforcement Directorate on Thursday examined Collectors of five districts — Ariyalur, Karur, Thanjavur, Tiruchi and Vellore — as part of the ongoing probe into allegations of money laundering, involving a huge quantity of illegal sand mining in the State.
Complying with the orders of the Supreme Court which directed the Collectors to appear and respond to the summons issued by the ED in the illegal sand mining case, the IAS officers appeared before a team of investigators, headed by the Joint Director, Chennai Zone – I, sources in the intelligence agencies said.
The Collectors were given a questionnaire on sand mining operations in their respective districts, as regards extent of sand mining sites, quantity of excavation permitted, etc. The Collectors were examined individually during the questioning that went on for a few hours, sources said.
After conducting searches at river sand mining sites and stockyards, office and residential premises of suspects at multiple locations, across Tamil Nadu on September 12, 2023, the ED unearthed several incriminating documents, such as fake bills of sand sales and counterfeit QR codes which pointed to GST losses to the Central and State governments.
After roping in expertise of National Remote Sensing Centre, Indian Space Research Organisation and IIT-Kanpur, to conduct a technical study on the quantum of sand mined, the ED said that the total value of the illegal sand mined in the past one or two years could be to the tune of ₹4,730 crore, whereas the revenue shown on record was only ₹36.45 crore.
The investigating agency, provisionally attached assets worth ₹136.60 crore, including movable assets valued at ₹128.34 crore, comprising 209 sand excavators deployed in illicit sand mining. Also, ₹2.25 crore deposits in bank accounts, belonging to Shanmugham Ramachandran, Karuppaiah Rethinam and Pannerselvam Karikalan and others, were under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002.
After the Madras High Court on November 28, 2023, stayed the summons issued to District Collectors for producing details regarding all sand quarry sites in their districts, the ED appealed against the order in the apex court. The Enforcement Case Information Report was based on four FIRs registered by the State police, including the one pertaining to the murder of the Village Administrative Officer, who tried to prevent illegal sand mining at Orathanadu in Thoothukudi district.
Ruling that the District Collectors were bound to provide information to the ED, the Supreme Court lifted the stay on summons and observed that the State’s legal fight against the Central agency was “strange, unusual and prima facie misconceived.”
